


if it makes me a king

by ODed_on_jingle_jangle



Series: snakes to a mongoose [8]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Introspection, Mild Blood, Minor Archie Andrews/Veronica Lodge, Minor Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Season/Series 02, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-19 05:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22139020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ODed_on_jingle_jangle/pseuds/ODed_on_jingle_jangle
Summary: “Are you mad at me?”“No,” Archie answers, soft and simple. “I’m too happy you’re alive to be mad.”Jughead cocks his head, peering at him closely. “Aw, man.”“Hm?”“You’re staring at me like a puppy I left outside in the rain.”
Relationships: Archie Andrews & Jughead Jones
Series: snakes to a mongoose [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1028291
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	if it makes me a king

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo apparently I'm adding more to my evidently never-ending collection of self-indulgence. Needless to say these are not in order! This one takes place in between parts...whoa, 4 and 6 but after 5? 
> 
> Damn, this really did get longer than I thought it was going to. Whoops. Also, this is probably not the part any readers were hoping for which is probs the inevitable Bughead reunion part. I mean, I just kind of figure that's what ppl want since that ship's all like half this fandom cares about, right? But yeah, no, that's not this. I will write that! But that's not this part, and lucky for y'all who're looking for that, Bughead content is what half of this fandom is, so you can easily go back to the main Riverdale AO3 tag and take your pick! 
> 
> If I sound salty, I swear I'm not salty! Not a bit! I'm just being upfront, 'cause like, yeah, this part? Not that part. No romo here, folks, just more introspective, dialogue heavy gen content with morbid overtones. 
> 
> Also I've discovered that I was probably subconsciously inspired by a Free! fic I read back in the day called like, _10 Conversations To Have In A Hospital Room_ or something similar, but I can't find that fic now. Author, whoever you are, thank you for your inspiration. That was a damn good fic and I'm bummed I can't find it. I hope you're doing well, wherever you are. 
> 
> Anyway, warning for references to rape going forward in this fic. It's not a focal part of this fic but nonetheless I understand the allusion alone is potentially triggering content and therefore want to warn ppl now. 
> 
> Got title from [this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-9DOwrLdkg) And I feel slightly guilty for that, because I deserve not the gifts of Zendaya nor Labrinth in my basic bitch life.

It feels like there’s more blood soaked through Archie’s shirt and jeans than there is left in Betty’s body. She is limp and phantom pale, shallow breaths wheezing weakly past her blue-tinged lips. Even more blood rolls down her bare, broken legs that dangle over his forearm, dripping off her heels and softly pitter-pattering to the tile. 

It is the second time in Archie’s life that he’s rushed through the doors of Riverdale General with a profusely bleeding loved one in his grasp and this time he doesn’t even realize he’s screaming for help. It doesn’t register until there are people trying to take Betty away from him. For a fraction of a second his reflexive instinct is to clutch her tighter but his brain quickly catches up with his body. 

Archie lowers her to the waiting gurney that’s been thrust in their direction, averting his eyes as his letterman jacket slips down her torso. He isn’t fast enough to miss the bite marks on her breast and it’s like all his organs surge upward into his chest, squishing into one nauseating mass that his rib cage clenches far too tight. 

His knee-jerk reaction is to follow as they hastily steer Betty down the hall, rapidly exchanging protocol as he finds himself breathlessly begging her to be okay, begging them to tell him she’s going to be okay because she has to be okay! She’s Betty, she’s his best friend— 

“Red?” 

Archie goes rigid. He turns around to see FP Jones wearing the drying stains of his other best friend’s blood, much more vivid and terrifyingly real when unobscured by fog and pale firelight. Any semblance of composure he’d had left crumbles away. Eyes suddenly burning hot, he chokes out a sound in between a gag and a sob, nearly tripping over himself as he stumbles back toward him.

FP hurries across the stretch of tile that separates them, reaching out, then stopping short as his eyes flash to the scarlet splotches on Archie’s clothes. Archie’s skin prickles uncomfortably against the still wet fabric. He feels lightheaded, like he might pass out and crack his head open right here on the floor and spill some blood of his own. 

FP jerks his head up, eyes flickering to the adjacent hallway as familiar footsteps power walk toward them. Alice Cooper trots up on Archie’s left and places a hand on his shoulder, brow furrowed in concern. 

“Archie? Did you find Betty?” 

* * *

Archie doesn’t sleep a wink on Riot Night. Spends it at Riverdale General, sitting on pins and needles and suffocating on his helplessness to do any more than just that. Sit. Wait. Anticipate. Watch his father do his best to talk FP and Mrs. Cooper off the edge at several points during the night. Hold Veronica after she finally arrives, breathless, hours after Archie had initially tried to contact her. 

It is a hard night that eventually ends in relief when both Jughead and Betty make it through and only then does Archie agree to go home, but the streets are too dangerous, so he sleeps in the waiting room instead, Veronica mostly in his lap and head resting against his father’s shoulder. 

* * *

The next day is easier, but not much. 

It’s not easy when Betty shrinks away from him, zonked out and staring around her hospital room like an astronaut who just crash-landed on an alien planet. 

“I’m sorry, you guys,” she says to him and Veronica, small and hoarse. Whoever left those bruises on her throat must’ve squeezed the voice out of her and that thought makes Archie want to fucking kill someone. “I’m just really tired.” 

He tries not to be hurt by her dismissal. It’s not like it’d be easy to be here with Mrs. Cooper breathing down their necks anyway. She keeps pacing back and forth, back and forth over the tile, waving her hands or furiously tapping on her phone. Even Archie is getting exhausted watching her, let alone heavily injured, semi-sedated Betty who has to spend the whole day with her. 

Another thing that’s not easy is having to tell Jughead about Betty. 

“How bad?” he asks, busted lip wobbling, FP’s hand on his shoulder. 

Archie’s stomach drops like a boulder because the answer is bad, _so_ bad he nearly pissed himself with the fear that Betty was going to die in his arms. Her weight so slack, her whimpers growing fainter until they whittled away to silence entirely, her blood that gushed until it soaked his denim to ghastly ruin. And where most of that blood was coming from— the fluid that definitely wasn’t blood on her skin, ice cold skin without a stitch—

“Archie,” Jughead prompts, pleading. 

“P-Pretty bad, Jug,” he admits, exchanging a glance with FP. “They, uh, broke her legs and her nose, and her ribs. Cut her up really bad, too.” 

The eye that isn’t swollen shut widens and Jughead sucks in a gasp that obviously hurts, a sharp catch in his breath and subsequent flinch. He breaks down crying and this is startling because Jughead rarely ever cries. He’s been stoic as long as Archie’s known him, swallowing his hurt in between salty or sugary snacks and brandishing his sarcasm like a shield. 

But this, but Betty— Betty is everything and it’s enough to have him sobbing. Enormous, guttural sobs strong enough to scrape his throat raw. Archie wants to comfort him, but touching him without hurting him seems virtually impossible with splints and sutures and bruises everywhere. This too is a thought that makes Archie want to fucking kill someone. 

He gently curls his hand around the inside of Jughead’s elbow, gauze beneath his fingertips, one layer of many winding up and around the shoulder that got carved into like a butcher’s slap of beef. FP strokes his hair, wearily reminds him to breathe. 

Eventually he sobs himself to exhaustion and at this point, FP looks like he wants to fucking kill someone too. 

* * *

“Hey,” Archie greets, raising his hand in a small wave. 

Several days into Jughead’s stay, the splints have been replaced with fiberglass casts done in black, he’s got one of FP’s plaid blankets from the trailer that’s kind of worn and a little bit frayed, but still more comfortable than the starchy, generic hospital waffle weave. The lights in the room aren’t as dim because his concussion’s getting better. 

“Hey,” he says, blinking up at Archie fuzzily. “Shouldn’t you be in class?” 

“Uh…it’s Saturday, Juggie.” Archie winds around the bed and plops down in a chair. 

“Crap, I lost a day,” he mutters. “It’s hard to keep track of time in this place.” 

“I bet.” Archie drums his fingers on the arm of the chair. “How you feeling?” 

Jughead gives an eye roll, mouth folding in a grimace. “C’mon, Andrews. That’s only the fiftieth time I’ve been asked that question today.” 

“How do you know?” Archie scoffs as if affronted. “You didn’t know what ‘today’ was until two seconds ago!” 

“Touché,” he concedes. 

“Seriously,” Archie presses. “You doing okay?” 

“Yeah, I am.” Jughead bobs his head, simple and sincere before he cracks a wicked grin. “Much better now that I don’t have a ruptured spleen squirting blood all over my other insides.” 

Archie wrinkles his nose. 

“Too graphic?” 

“Little bit.” And he knows Jughead’s trying to keep the mood light but Archie can’t think of any of this in light terms, not when he was there to see FP emerge from the woods with what looked like his best friend’s corpse, not when he still feels like fucking killing someone because it’s a memory that will haunt him forever. 

“Sorry.” Jughead shifts a bit, lying on his side as much as he can, features tensing as concern curtains his face. “How’s Betty?” 

Archie hesitates. It’s sort of awkward talking about Betty when Jughead only knows half of what happened to her. An elephant in the room of what more he knows, what he saw when he went back to find her. But those are raw horrors only Betty herself should have the rights to disclose, whether or not the rest of the town is talking. 

Archie is being careful with Betty and hasn’t personally visited her since the first time. As much as it aches to hold back, he and Veronica agreed that it was better that way. To wait for Betty to reach out and invite them in, rather than intrude and make her feel smothered with attention she might not be ready for. Veronica has since received that invitation, but Archie hasn’t. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t bummed out, but he knows he needs to put his feelings aside and have patience. 

“Well, Veronica’s been pampering her for three days straight,” Archie decides to answer, because this much is true and positive. “And you know how good Veronica is at pampering.” 

“You’re telling me,” Jughead huffs lightly, seeming relieved. “My dad looked at the price sticker on that box of chocolates she brought. Guess how much.” 

“Uh, hundred bucks?” Archie ventures. 

“Hundred-fifty.” 

“She’s great, isn’t she?” Archie beams, strangely, brazenly proud of his girlfriend’s ability to spoil people with small luxuries. 

“Ridiculous is the word I would’ve used…but yeah,” he agrees reluctantly, folding under Archie’s pointed look. “She is. You’re not allowed to tell her I think that though.” 

“Pretty sure she already knows, Jug. Not much gets passed Veronica.” 

“Hope she doesn’t figure out I puked half the box then. They weren’t gross or anything,” he adds, reading Archie look of surprise. “Eating is just kinda iffy right now.” 

“What does that mean?” Archie asks, struck with a sudden jolt of alarm. 

“Nothing, it just came out wrong,” Jughead backtracks. “I probably ate them too fast, that’s all. Chill out, Archie. I’m alright.” 

That’s hardly convincing, considering where they are. But Archie nods anyway, chewing on the inside of his cheek. 

“So what’ve you been up to?” Jughead asks. 

Volunteering to help clean up the town and massacring his punching bag until his knuckles throb. 

“Just school and stuff. Sorry I haven’t been by in a few days. I wanted to come sooner but your mom showed up…” 

“She scare you off?” Jughead frowns, somewhat apologetically. 

“What? No.” Archie snorts and shakes his head. “Your mom likes me. She used to like me, anyway. Wait, does your mom not like me anymore?” 

“Nah, she still likes you,” Jughead chuckles, mollifying his fears. 

Archie lets out a sigh of relief. “Cool. I just wanted to give you guys some space together since it’s been a long time since you've seen her.” 

Jughead inclines his head, expression hardening, lips pressing tight together.

“How’s that going?” Archie asks, quiet. 

Jughead stiffly rubs at the back of his neck, IV tube skimming the guardrail of the bed as his lips separate with a soft pop. 

“I missed her. I’m glad to see her, I just…” He trails off, rakes a hand through his hair in frustration. “Why did it take almost getting killed for my mom to come see me? Why did it take broken bones and sixty-two stitches? Would she have skipped out on coming if it was only sixty-one?” 

Archie’s heart gives a painful thump and his mouth goes cotton dry. 

“Why did it take that much, Archie?” Jughead grates out, almost begging. 

And of course, he doesn’t have an answer. 

“It shouldn’t have,” is what he says eventually. “When you called her that time, that— that should’ve been enough.” 

Jughead blows out a heavy breath and Archie thinks he can see him shaking just a little bit. 

“She’s here now and I’m glad, I am, I want her to be here. I don’t want to be mad at her, either, so I guess that’s not what I’m saying. I don’t know what I’m saying, really.” He lays back, like the admission itself is exhausting. 

“It’s complicated,” Archie murmurs. “I get it.” 

“How about you? Talked to your mom lately?” 

“Not really. My dad did though, told her about everything that happened.” 

“Do you miss her?” 

Archie thinks of the way his mother would spread marmalade over toast, with wide sweeps of the butter knife. He thinks of the precise way she would roll lint rollers over her pantsuits in the bathroom and snap her fingers when she missed a spot. He thinks of her hugs as warm as gingerbread fresh from the oven and the way she once sat curled near his father on the coach at night, Archie on the floor with Vegas while something or other played on the television. 

“Yeah, definitely. But I’m pretty used to her not being around anymore, too. Is that awful to say out loud?” 

“Nope, that’s normal,” Jughead mumbles. “What would be awful is if I said something like: I think sometimes I missed your mom more than mine. Theoretically speaking, of course.” 

Archie compares a memory of his mother making an entire mixing bowl’s worth of extra potato salad for Jughead during a backyard barbecue and a memory of a stressed Mrs. Jones flipping Jughead off in front of the whole school because he refused to go back to the trailer to help her wrangle an exceptionally trashed, probably-blackout-drunk FP. How she went to his own father for assistance with this task after the fact. 

“Hey, Jug?” 

“Yeah?”

“What were we supposed to do if you died?” 

Shock sparks in Jughead’s gaze. Archie swallows and holds it, waiting. 

“I don’t know,” he mutters. 

“You don’t know?” Archie repeats nebulously, thinking back to the night in the waiting room, dread making it so impossible to breathe it was like his lungs were filled with concrete. 

“No, Archie.” He averts his eyes.

“You didn’t think about what that would do to your family?” Archie challenges, suddenly inexplicably hurt. “Or me? Or Betty?” 

“I guess eventually everybody would’ve just gotten used to me not being around,” Jughead huffs out, dark and exasperated.

Archie balks as if he’s been struck. “It’s not the same thing! That’s not even close to the same thing!” 

“You’re right,” Jughead winces apologetically. “That was shitty to throw back at you. It just sounded better than saying I really don’t know. But that's the thing— I just don’t. As bad as it sounds bad, in the moment, I didn’t really think that far ahead. I didn’t want to.” 

“Well, you called Betty,” Archie points out, unsure if this is meant to be an argument or not. 

“Yeah. I wanted her to know I loved her, but that was as far as I got with contemplating whatever would happen after. I think anyway.” Jughead pauses, playful twinkle coming to his eye. “If I did have some kind of grand plan about what you guys were going to do in the event of my untimely demise, I might not remember it. Chalk it up to the concussion.” 

“Really?” Archie says drily. “That’s how this is gonna go? You’re pulling the concussion card on me?” 

“Use what you’ve got, as they say.” The corner of Jughead’s mouth quirks up in this cheeky half-grin that despite everything, Archie cannot resist. So he just shakes his head and does his best to let it go.

A few moments pass and then Jughead shifts up a bit, sobering as he asks, 

“Are you mad at me?” 

“No,” Archie answers, soft and simple. “I’m too happy you’re alive to be mad.” 

Jughead cocks his head, peering at him closely. “Aw, man.” 

“Hm?” 

“You’re staring at me like a puppy I left outside in the rain.” 

“Mm.” 

“…do you need a hug, Archie?” Jughead raises a brow and irresistibly, Archie's eyes follow the ripple of the stitches in his forehead and the urge to fucking kill someone flares up in his chest all over again. It never really went away, just went dormant for a bit. 

“No,” he replies, maybe too quickly. 

“You’re not gonna hurt me, if that’s what you’re scared of,” Jughead says, gruff and seemingly aware of just how on the mark he is. “I got beat up but I’m not made of glass.” 

“I know…” 

“Or we could both just do that bro thing where we nod like douches and mutually suppress our emotions?” Jughead teases with that tart, sour candy lilt that makes Archie feel like everything’s going to be okay even though just a few days ago it seemed like the whole world came crashing down. “Because that works too.” 

Archie considers this and looks Jughead straight in the eye as he gives him the douchiest nod he can manage. Jughead returns in kind, gaze deceptively cool and grin tightly suppressed. Just like that, Archie caves, rises, and wraps Jughead up in a ginger hug. And maybe instead of going dormant, that desire to fucking kill someone genuinely drains out of him, if only for the time being when he can hold his friend. 

It’s comforting in a way he hadn’t realized he needed, he takes solace in the solidity of Jughead in his grasp. His living, breathing warmth— warmth that Betty’s limp weight didn’t have, her breaths so shallow Archie just knew in the deepest pit of his stomach that each one was going to be the last one even though none of them actually were. He holds him for so long he’s worried it gets awkward, but when he begins to loosen his grip, Jughead clutches on for a moment longer. The way his breath catches when he does leads Archie to believe that it does, in fact, hurt to do so. But he doesn’t ask. He lets him clutch and when they do separate, they separate slowly, and Archies senses that somehow, the levity has dissipated. 

“You okay, Jug?” 

Jughead anxiously swipes his tongue over his lip and swallows.

“So you’re not mad at me,” he says, slow, like it’s information he’s still trying to assimilate. “Is Betty?”

Archie pauses. He can’t actually admit he hasn’t seen Betty because that will immediately raise red flags.

“I don’t think she’s mad,” Archie tells him with a twinge of guilt. “I think there’s a lot of stuff you guys need to talk about though. That night was horrible for everybody, but her dad being the Black Hood, you trying to sacrifice yourself and almost dying in front of her, then getting beat up so bad she could’ve died too? That’s more than most people go through in a lifetime and it all happened to Betty in less than twenty-four hours.”

More than that too. Much more than that, the totality of which Archie will never know and never ever wants to know, because what he saw was more than enough.

“Forget being mad. She must hate me right now,” Jughead falters, voice as frayed as the edge of the blanket, mist springing to his eyes.

“Stop. Betty could never hate you.”

“Well, I kind of hate me,” he declares, burying his face in his hands. “Fuck, no, I _really_ hate me.”

“You’re not the one who hurt her,” Archie says quietly.

“She wouldn’t be here if I didn’t fuck up,” he hisses into his palms.

“I fucked up too. When we found you, it was— God, Juggie, you were dying,” Archie chokes out, struggling to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat.

Jughead lowers his hands, stares at the wall instead of Archie.

“So everybody started freaking out, trying to get through to 911, trying to figure out where all the blood was coming from in the dark, trying to keep you from choking on it. It was this crazy, whirlwind of panic and nobody knew when Betty got separated from us,” Archie continues, guilt sizzling in his gut like acid. “Nobody even noticed until we were got to the hospital, and I’m the first person who should have. I should’ve noticed right away and I didn’t, so you’re not the only one who fucked up, okay?”

Jughead turns his gaze back to him, solemn, teeth scraping his lower lip as he sucks in a deep breath.

“She’s really going to be okay, right?" he asks, voice fluttering nervously. "That’s not just bullshit my dad made up to keep me calm?”

“Of course she’s going to be okay. She’s Betty.”

Jughead doesn’t seem entirely convinced.

“Look, if she was in danger, I’d hijack you right now and bring you straight to her,” Archie promises.

This seems to be more reassuring, Jughead's shoulders slumping back. “Ooh. Think I could convince you to do that anyway?”

“No,” Archie refuses with a tight, apologetic smile. “I don’t trust myself not to trip over that thing or rip it out on accident.”

He nods to the weird, plastic box thing that Jughead’s chest tube leads into. And it’s not exactly a lie, because yeah, Archie could totally see himself doing that, but it’s also mostly an excuse. He doesn’t want to make any assumptions about what interactions Betty is and isn’t prepared for right now. The past few days, her life has been swept up and jerked in all kinds of hideous directions by other people’s decisions. Archie would rather tread lightly and let her breathe, let her be the one to make the decisions while she’s healing.

“Fine,” Jughead mutters, unhappy but compliant. “I guess it’s better that way. Veronica would probably finish me off if I interrupted whatever weird hospital spa day I’m sure she’s spoiling Betty with.”

“Probably,” Archie agrees, giving Jughead a stern look when he rolls his eyes.

“And honestly? I’d probably end up snoring on her anyway.”

“Oh.” Archie blinks. “Are you tired? You want me to go?”

“Yeah, get out of here,” Jughead urges. “Go enjoy your Saturday. Riverdale General is like the hotel in The Shining, it drives you crazy if you stay too long.”

“In that case, I think I should stay. Someone’s gotta keep you from going crazy, right?”

“I don't know, Archie." He clucks his tongue. "Think I'm already halfway there." 

"Then I definitely have to stay," Archie decides. “I'm in for the long haul, Jug, hand me the remote.”

“Alright. But no sports.”

**Author's Note:**

> There's gonna be like three more parts to this or something. At least two. I think three. Who knows.


End file.
